Graeme Burnet - The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau

Chez Simone was located in a basement in an alley off Rue des Lentilles. There was no sign outside. It was not a brothel, at least Manfred did not think of it as such. It was perfectly acceptable to come in, drink a glass of wine (Simone did not serve beer) and leave. Girls did not approach you and ask you to buy them drinks, but such a thing could easily be arranged with a word or a look to Simone. When the time came, Manfred caught Simone’s eye and she indicated with a brief nod that everything was in place.

Through the door to the right of the bar were three rooms. They were furnished like real bedrooms, complete with bookcases and dressing tables, each set out with feminine articles. As Manfred went through to the back, Simone informed him which room he should use. The girl was new, or at least Manfred had not seen her before. She was petite and blonde, perhaps eighteen or nineteen years old. Manfred was standing, as he always did when the girl entered, with his back to the far wall. He smiled a greeting without parting his lips.

‘Good evening, monsieur,’ said the girl. She had an eastern European accent. Manfred decided she was Hungarian. He had once read that the girls in Budapest were the most beautiful in Europe. But he did not ask her name or where she was from. Despite the fact that Manfred had been visiting Simone’s for many years, he never ceased to find the transaction embarrassing. Even with the girls he saw regularly the awkwardness never disappeared. He wondered if they ridiculed him behind his back or made excuses to Madame Simone not to service him. The girl was standing by the door, unsure what to do.

‘Has Madame Simone…?’ Manfred wanted to say ‘briefed you’, but he let the sentence trail off in the hope that he need not say more.

‘Yes, monsieur, I think so,’ she said. She was pretty and did not seem discomfited by the situation. She moved towards the bed in the centre of the room and lay on her back without undressing. She parted her legs.

‘Keep your legs together,’ Manfred said. It came out a little curtly, which he regretted, but he did not like to talk more than necessary. It mortified him to have to give instructions.

‘Yes, monsieur,’ she said.

‘Put your arms by your sides.’

The girl complied. Manfred tried not to think about the fact that this was only one in a series of indignities which she would endure over the course of the night. He climbed fully-clothed on top of the girl and began to rub himself against her body. He kept his hands on her shoulders and stared into her eyes. Her face betrayed no particular emotion, boredom perhaps. To Manfred’s relief, she did not simulate pleasure, as some of the other girls did. Theatrical moaning or exhortations ruined the experience for him, but he never had the nerve to ask them to be quiet. After a few minutes it was over and Manfred rolled off the girl and sat on the edge of the bed facing the wall. He fished in his wallet for a banknote and passed it to her without looking round. This was by way of a tip, as he had already paid Simone for her services. Manfred had no idea if his tip was generous or even if the other patrons left tips. He did not want to appear tight-fisted, nor did he wish to be overgenerous, as if he was trying to compensate the girls for the unpleasantness of the experience. In reality, he believed that however strange his behaviour was, it could hardly be anything other than easy money for the girls. So, he tipped the same amount he paid Simone for his half hour, a sum he understood was split between Simone and the girl in question. He never varied his tip, even if the girl had irritated him in some way, or if, like tonight, the encounter had been close to pleasurable. He would not wish one girl to think that he was less satisfied with her services. Mainly, he did not wish the girls to think ill of him.

‘Thank you,’ said the girl, taking the note.

‘Thank you,’ said Manfred, glancing over his shoulder. The girl took this as an indication that the transaction was over and left the room. The whole episode had lasted little more than ten minutes. Manfred stood up, undid his trousers and mopped up his emission with a handkerchief he had brought for the purpose. Then he sat down on the bed for a few minutes, breathing slowly and evenly.

He returned to the bar. Simone asked if everything had been to his satisfaction.

‘Yes. Thank you,’ Manfred replied, as he did every week.

He resumed his seat in the corner and ordered a final glass of wine. These were Manfred’s favourite moments of the week. Now that the act was over, he felt quite relaxed. The blonde girl emerged from the back. She spotted Manfred in the corner and smiled at him as if what had passed between them was entirely normal. Manfred liked her. She had been nice. Half an hour later he left to catch the last train back to Saint-Louis.

MANFRED HAD BEEN WATCHING his grandfather struggle to fill his pipe for fully ten minutes. The old man’s hands shook violently these days, but Manfred knew any offer of assistance would be gruffly spurned. They were sitting on the patio overlooking the garden, awaiting the summons for Sunday lunch. After a few more minutes Bertrand Paliard succeeded in lighting the pipe. A momentary expression of satisfaction passed across his face as he took his first draw, but this was swiftly overtaken by a fierce fit of coughing. His nurse, who had been standing in attendance by the French windows, took a couple of steps towards him. There was an oxygen mask to hand, but she merely stood by as he struggled for breath. She did not approve of him smoking. The tobacco had a warm nutty aroma, a smell which always reminded Manfred of his miserable teenage years.

After his mother died, Manfred felt like a lodger in the Paliard house. In his early teens he had grown quickly. He was ill at ease with his newfound height and the unwelcome attention it attracted. Consequently he developed a stoop. His grandfather nicknamed him Nosferatu on account of the way he crept around the house, keeping close to the walls. At school he kept himself to himself. He was not picked on. He had on one or two occasions proved capable of standing up for himself, so despite his physical and social awkwardness, bullying was reserved for softer targets. He was aware, too, that the death of both his parents cast a kind of barrier around him. It made him unapproachable both to those kids who wanted to ridicule him and to those, if any, who might have wished to befriend him.

Manfred began to long for companionship, for a pal to discuss the merits of the girls at school, or to sit with into the small hours in his room listening to records and discussing their favourite authors. This pal would invite him over and he would be welcomed into a surrogate family, in which the mother cooked lavish Sunday spreads and the father took the boys on Sunday fishing or hiking trips. There were candidates for such friendship at school. Manfred could spot the other awkward cases at a hundred metres, by the way they hovered on the fringes of the crowd, by the books they slyly fished out of their satchels at break, by their ability to disappear into the background. But Manfred was incapable of breaching the silent understanding he had — or thought he had — with his fellow maladroits.

As for a girlfriend, it was not for the want of carnal thoughts that Manfred did not countenance the possibility of so much as a friendship with a girl. He could barely utter a word to a member of the opposite sex without his face breaking into a deep crimson blush. So he avoided girls altogether. Still, they occupied most of his waking thoughts. He observed them surreptitiously at school, and walked, unnoticed, a few metres behind them on the way home, listening to their laughter, noting the minutiae of how they dressed, admiring the smooth curve of their suntanned legs. He entertained elaborate sexual fantasies, but he also daydreamed of being introduced to a girl’s parents. He would behave in a polite and respectful manner and be regarded as a nice young man with good prospects. Most of all Manfred longed to walk through the woods hand in hand with a girl who would call him Mani, just as his mother had.